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On September 5th, solar panels were installed on the roof of the Los Angeles Convention Center. In 2045, the governor of the state signed a bill setting a 100% clean energy target for the state.
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Mario Tama / Getty Images
On September 5th, solar panels were installed on the roof of the Los Angeles Convention Center. In 2045, the governor of the state signed a bill setting a 100% clean energy target for the state.
Mario Tama / Getty Images
California has set an ambitious goal of fully relying on renewable energy for its electricity by 2045.
Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill to set the electricity target on Monday. He also issued a decree calling for state-wide carbon neutrality – which means that California "removes as much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere it emits" – for the same year.
"This bill and the executive decree put California on the road to achieving the goals of Paris and beyond," Brown said in a statement. "It will not be easy, it will not be immediate, but we have to do it."
While the Trump administration is pushing back federal efforts to fight climate change, California has actively played a leading role in the international fight against global warming.
The latest announcement comes shortly before Brown travels to San Francisco for the World Climate Summit.
The bill specifically requires that 50% of California's electricity be supplied by renewable resources by 2025 and 60% by 2030, while calling for a "bold path" toward renewable energy at 100% by 2045.
Previously, California had required 50% renewable electricity by 2030.
California is not the first state with such ambitions – in 2015, Hawaii set the 2045 goal.
But, as KQED's Lauren Sommer said last year, "California consumes about 30 times more electricity than Hawaii and the world's fifth largest economy."
California already receives a significant portion of its electricity from renewable resources.
The California Energy Commission estimates that 32% of retail energy sales were powered by renewable sources last year.
But the offer of renewable energy varies from one day to another, even at every moment.
Planet Money, of NPR, said that on a sunny day in June, nearly 50% of the state 's electricity came solely from solar energy.
But as Sommer pointed out last year, this variability means that it is difficult to get a renewable energy supply to meet the demand for electricity:
"The sun and the wind do not always produce power when Californians need it most, namely in the evening.
"Other state power plants, such as natural gas and nuclear power, are not as flexible as needed to manage these highs and lows." Hydropower offers the greatest flexibility but is rare during the years of drought. "
Large-scale energy storage systems can help solve this problem, said Sommer, as well as a "better connected transport network system".
California has dramatically scaled up its climate change policies four times over the last four years, as reported last month by Ben Bradford of Capital Public Radio.
Prior to the new 100% renewable target, lawmakers approved "increased use of renewable energy, tighter targets for greenhouse gases and the expansion of the cap and trade program." exchange, "he wrote.
The new bill was backed by Democrats who pointed to the damaging consequences of climate change, while opposing Republicans from states that pointed to the financial costs of politics, Bradford reported.
California utilities were about to reach the previous goal of 50% clean energy by 2030, "but scientists question the feasibility of 100% clean and profitable energy or new technological advances, "writes Bradford.
Some cities in the United States have obtained 100% renewable electricity or energy supplies, including Aspen, Colo, Burlington, Vt. And Georgetown, Texas.
And earlier this year, for a whole month, Portugal produced enough renewable energy to meet all of its electricity demand, although the country used fossil fuels to offset the periodic lag between supply and demand. and the demand.
As reported NPR at the time:
"For most countries in the world, a fully renewable energy supply still seems to be a difficult target – some small island countries have managed it, as well as a few large countries.
"Iceland and Norway have been meeting all of their electricity needs through hydropower and geothermal energy for years – but these countries benefit from extraordinary geology, which makes them difficult to reproduce.
"Many small islands are completely green, but large countries are rare, and on the particularly windy days of 2015 and 2017, Denmark has gone beyond its own electricity needs through wind energy.
"And several times in recent years, Costa Rica has put in place renewable energy for several months, fueled by the heavy rains that fed the hydroelectric facilities."
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